Role Reversal
by Veil of Shadows
Summary: When Fakir decided to bring Ahiru back, he never thought the price for changing fate would be so high... FakirxAhiruxMythoxRue, HIATUSED


_Once upon a time, there was a princess and a prince. And once upon a time, there was a girl and a knight. The girl pieced together the prince's broken heart, and the princess brought it alive again with words of love, and the knight--_

_The knight wrote them all a happy ending. Except, perhaps, the girl._

_For you see, she was really a duck. And a duck she became again. And perhaps that was the right and true way, but perhaps it was not, because after all she had seen and done, she could never truly be a duck again..._

_---_

They come over every week. Some of the townspeople find it strange, a prince and princess coming to visit an ordinary boy, but they chalk it up to a strange quirk of royalty. After all, who could ask for a better couple?

(Sometimes, Fakir wonders what they would say if they knew their precious prince was coming to see a duck as well.)

There's a routine they've developed for the visits. Rue and Mytho stoll up the walk, arm in arm, the image of the perfect couple. Fakir sits outside, absently scratching out an ending to one of Drosselmeyer's tales.

Mytho always speaks first. "Hello, Fakir," he says, and there's a small smile on his face.

Fakir looks up lazily. "Oh, are you here already?"

"Are you doing well?"

"Mm." He looks back down at the paper and continues to write.

"You're very talkative," Rue remarks.

Fakir snorts. "Ahiru's over there, as usual."

"You haven't tried to write her back yet?"

"No."

"Don't want to change fate, huh?" she says, and smirks.

Fakir _hmphs_, but he sets down his book and walks over to the docks. "They're here, Ahiru." The duck promptly lets go of the reeds she'd been tugging at and looks up happily.

"Hello, Tutu," Mytho says, and reaches down to pat her head. He always calls her _Tutu_, never Ahiru, and it was only recently he found out they were one and the same.

Rue crouches down beside him. "You're looking as foolish as ever, Ahiru."

Fakir simply rolls his eyes and sits down beside them. Ahiru quacks happily and settles herself down into a lap. Most of the time it's his lap, but sometimes it's Rue's, and once in a while it's Mytho's. Whoever it is arranges him or herself so that he's (or she's, Rue would interject) sitting in the middle.

Then they talk. About ballet, about the stories (Fakir has five and a half still to go), about the ramifications of ruling over a town that only half-existed until recently, sometimes about the weather, even, if no one wants to think about anything else. Occasionally, Ahiru will quack as if trying to say something; Fakir wonders if she's still forgetting she can't talk anymore, and the thought subdues him.

Eventually they run out of things to talk about, and Rue and Mytho make their excuses and leave. They stroll down the walk in exactly the way they came, arm in arm, looking like the perfect couple. Ahiru quacks then, a happy sort of quack, and Fakir lets himself smile.

"Yeah, they do look good together, don't they?" he says, and Ahiru quacks again in response. He has no idea if that's what she's really saying, but he figures it's close enough, isn't it? Then he walks back over to where he's left his book, Ahiru following, and sits down with it again.

She sits on his shoulder and watches him write, but after a while, he finds it impossible to concentrate, because how can he just _write_ when she's watching him? "Stop that," he says, and she turns her head away apologetically, but five minutes later, she's at it again. He never gets much done on those days, but that isn't really the point, is it?

They stay like that for a while, and then the sun goes down and Ahiru toddles back to the river and Fakir goes back home. It's not a bad routine, really, and nobody's _happy _with it (how could they be, without Ahiru?), but really, nobody's _sad _either. Yes, sometimes Fakir does wonder, but he tells himself that it's foolish. You can't change fate, and you shouldn't try either.

Then one day, everything changes.


End file.
